Latino lawmakers say Texas Voter ID law a hardship for minorities

Texas Latino lawmakers testified in a federal trial Tuesday that Republicans rushed a voter ID bill through the legislature despite repeated objections about discrimination and hardships for minority voters.

State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer (Official photo)

State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, chairman of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, told a three-judge federal panel that GOP supporters first claimed the bill was a measure to curb voting by illegal immigrants, then as a way to stop fraud.

Despite concerns from minority lawmakers, Martinez Fischer said Republicans changed legislative rules, funneled it a newly created committee in order to pass a bill designated a legislative emergency by Gov. Rick Perry, who later became a GOP presidential candidate.

“There was a deliberate effort to pass this,” Martinez Fischer said, “and pass this in record time.”

State Rep. Raphael Anchia, D-Dallas, told the court: “I fear it is going to disenfranchise a lot of people.”

The federal judges are weighing a lawsuit filed by Texas asking the U.S. District Court implement the new voter photo ID law over objections by the Justice Department that the new law would discriminate against the poor and minorities.

A decision in the case is expected within a month.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, in filing the lawsuit, said the state has the right to protect the integrity of its elections. He has cited similar laws that have been implemented in Georgia and Indiana.

Texas claims the new law would not discriminate against minority voters, requiring everyone to produce a valid photo identification like a driver’s license, passport or military ID.

The state put on witnesses Monday who testified that felons, non-citizens and people using identification from the deceased voted in recent elections, including the May 29 primaries.

The Justice Department called rebuttal witnesses Tuesday, including a San Antonio student who traveled from Texas by airplane with only a high school photo ID to testify in the trial.

Victoria Rodriguez, 18, who will attend St. Mary’s University in the fall, said she has a birth certificate and student identification card, but lacks the documents to prove her state residency, because she lives with her parents, that would allow her to vote under the new law.

She said she does not have a driver’s license because of the cost of insurance.

The Justice Department claims 1.4 million people, like Rodriguez, could be disenfranchised if the new Texas voter photo ID becomes law. It would mostly minorities, elderly and students.

Minority rights groups have sided with the Justice Department, saying the new law singles out racial minorities, who historically have voted overwhelmingly Democrat.

Martinez Fischer said Latino and African American lawmakers objected during the legislative session to the voter ID bill, citing the large number of minorities without driver’s licenses and the burdens faced to receive one at Department of Public Safety offices.

There are 70 Texas counties that do not have DPS offices. In cities like San Antonio, applicants can be subjected to a two-hour wait, Martinez Fischer testified, making it difficult for the elderly and working poor who use bus lines.

Despite the lack of access concerns, Martinez Fischer said a politically charged atmosphere in the legislature propelled the GOP-backed voter ID bill through a special committee designed to ensure its passage.

Similar legislation had failed in 2005, 2007 and 2009.

The bill’s passage in 2011 came during the politically charged legislative session when Perry was considered a possible GOP presidential candidate and told a Tea Party rally against federal mandates that the state could secede from the union.

Voter ID legislation was first promoted as a way to keep illegal immigrants from voting, Martinez Fischer said, and was criticized as veiled immigration policy.

Then supporters claimed it was designed to curb voting fraud.

“The goal posts kept moving,” Martinez Fischer said.

John Hughes, a lawyer representing Texas, sought to impugn Martinez Fischer’s testimony as political hyperbole.

The state showed that Martinez Fischer’s 73-year-old mother had renewed her driver’s license in 2011 after he had incorrectly told news conferences that she would be “shut out” of the political process because she did not have the necessary ID.

Martinez Fischer said he didn’t know the information was incorrect until after he asked his mother.

State and Justice Department lawyers both attacked the validity of analysis conducted by experts for each side, using data bases for driver’s licenses, voter registration and concealed weapons permits.

A statistical expert for the state, Dr. Thomas Sager, a University of Texas professor, testified that the Justice Department estimate that 1.5 million people could be disenfranchised by the new law was off by thousands.

But Sager admitted under cross-examination that his own estimates were found to be incorrect, and that his estimates on impact of the law did not take ethnicity into account.

A delay in the quick tempo of the proceedings through objections by lawyers for the state drew a rebuke from District Judge Rosemary Collyer.

Judge Rosemary Collyer (Official photo)

Collyer said Texas has failed to provide documents on time to the Justice Department to prepare for the trial “again and again and again.”

She cut off the objections by state lawyers, and said Texas would receive “no sympathy from the court.”

The Justice Department contends that Texas, under the Voting Rights Act, is obligated to show that the new voter ID law does not discriminate against minorities before a federal court or the Justice Department can allow to be implemented.

Texas is one of 16 mostly southern states that fall under the Voting Rights Act of 1965 because of a pattern of discrimination against minorities and must receive pre-clearance by the Justice Department to change voting laws or procedures.

The Justice Department rejected the new Texas voter ID law passed by the state legislature in 2011, prompting Abbott to file a lawsuit seeking a federal court order to implement the law over Justice Department objections.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder spoke out against the law during the NAACP convention in Houston on Tuesday. Click here for the full report.